The present invention relates generally to a oven and more particularly to a cool, multi-sectioned oven door for a large window oven with heat radiating fins on the hinges of the oven door.
Glass panes are often used in the manufacture of inspection windows in the doors of ovens. It is known to use several panes of glass in these windows because of the heat. However, untreated glass panes are not suitable for use in high heat ovens, especially the self-cleaning variety, due to the excessively high heat generated during the self-cleaning process.
Also known in the art are oven windows that use selective reflection, vacuum insulation and forced air cooling to maintain one side of a set of windows cooler than the side that is exposed to high temperature. To this end, a plurality of transparent panes are spaced in a parallel relationship to each other. Air or any other suitable gas or fluid may be forced through the spaces between the transparent panes to provide cooling. Also, the panes may be coated to provide for filtering out infrared radiation.
Thus, it is also known to apply at least one coating of heat resistant material to the glass panes. This coating is a capable of screening off a significant amount of incident infrared radiation generated in the oven. Such a coating may consist of a single layer or it may have multiple layers with similar or varying thicknesses. Also the multiple layers of coatings may be of the same or different coating materials.
Preferred coating types include several metals, i.e. gold, silver, aluminum, copper and palladium since such metals are particularly well-adapted to reflect infrared radiation. Also other coatings include oxides and mixtures of oxides, due to their effectiveness as infrared radiation screens, while at the same time providing good visibility into the oven through the coating itself. For example, these specific oxides include tin oxide and indium oxide which are the most efficient and wear resistant.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,091 discloses a self-contained flange mount window unit for use in an oven door. -The window unit has a pair of glass panes held in spaced parallel relationship to each other. The windows are secured to the back panel of the oven door by fasteners. This patent does not disclose using heat radiating hinges and forced air for extra cooling.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,324 discloses a multi-piece oven door for use with a self-cleaning oven. The reference discloses a multi-piece glass oven door with air channels between the pieces of glass. However, this patent does not provide using forced air through the air channels nor does it provide heat-radiating tinned hinges.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,286 discloses a self-contained window unit adapted to be for use in an oven door. Brackets and spacers are used to hold the pieces of glass in spaced parallel relationship to each other: The patent discloses a window unit having four pieces of glass. However, this patent does not disclose using selected forced air flow with heat radiating hinge fins.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,206,338 discloses a self-contained three pane window unit which is equipped with a microwave shield. It is thus particularly suited for use in a microwave oven. However, this patent does not disclose using four pieces of glass with selected forced air flow and heat radiating hinge fins.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,207,863 discloses a window door for covering the oven cavity of a pyrolytic range having a high temperature self-cleaning cycle. However, this patent does not disclose using four pieces of glass with selected forced air flow and heat radiating hinge fins.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,192,575 discloses a heat insulating window for use in an oven. This reference also discloses a forced flow of cooling fluid between the window panes. However, this patent invention does not disclose the combination of heat radiating hinge fins and forced air cooling with a multi-window oven door.